Wide Right, No Goal

The Force, As It Relates To Throwing Touchdowns

2005-11-14T09:51:00.000-05:00

It turns out some "Star Wars" philosophy helped sustain J.P. Losman
during his four-week exile on the Buffalo Bills' bench.

The quarterback stopped worrying about saying the right thing. He
worried about doing the right thing - every day in practice - with the
help of the wise Jedi master, Yoda.

"There's a guy who's my neighbor, he's a Buffalonian, and his quote he
lives by is, "There is no try, only do,' by the famous Yoda," Losman
said. "He's been putting that in my ear. Stop talking about it. Go out
there and do it. . . . Go out and make it happen. That's the way I
want to play."

-- from The Buffalo News, November 12, 2005 Full Text

Supreme Sport

2005-07-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

For those who haven't heard, Buffalo-born John Roberts, W's Supreme Court nominee, is a Bills fan. Admittedly, this puts Wide Right in a difficult position. We first discovered the fact here.

To make matters trickier, a Roberts-related Bills diss at Salon's "Bread and Circuses" blog is as follows:

"Senator Chuck Schumer suggested that John Roberts' support for the Buffalo Bills is a 'great' thing. I think not. There are 29 other teams in the NFL, and I think supporters of all of those other teams can get behind the idea that whatever else we do as a nation, we shouldn't let a Bills fan on the Supreme Court. I mean, think of the children." [here and then scroll.]

These are confusing times — and there is much soul searching — at Wide Right headquarters.

Van muller

2005-07-18T21:29:00.000-04:00

Van Morrison's Saint Dominic's Preview has long been one of Wide Right, No Goal's favorite albums. But today (thanks, Mr. iPod) we puzzled anew over these enigmatic lines in the title track:

And it's a long way to Buffalo
A long way to Belfast City too
And I'm hoping the choice won't blow the hoist
'cause this town, they bit off more than they can chew

Anyone know what this might mean? (Not just the Buffalo/Belfast pairing—what does it mean to blow a hoist, exactly?)

Humor Gallo

2005-05-24T09:32:00.000-04:00

The Dean talks to Leah Archibald, of our favorite band, Wide Right. No mention of the name's genesis, however!

A touchdown for honesty

2005-05-19T07:36:00.000-04:00

In the shadow of Rich Stadium, a library frequenter does the right thing:

From American Libraries Online:

Overdue Book Nets New York Library $2,190
The Orchard Park (N.Y.) Public Library, part of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library system, received a $2,190 donation April 29, along with a book returned more than 24 years lhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifate.

Joel P. Schlesinger, a former area resident who lives in New Jersey, found The Joy of Camping in his attic a few months ago, according to the May 3 Buffalo News. He had checked the book out in 1981.

When he found the book, Schlesinger visited the library’s website to see about returning it, and learned of B&ECPL’s financial problems. Schlesinger calculated $2,190 as his total late fee, based on the library’s current fines of 25 cents per day. The library caps fines at $15, but when Director Ann M. Laubacker told Schlesinger of the maximum, he opted to pay the full amount. “I spent a lot of time in the Orchard Park library, doing projects and stuff,” Schlesinger said.

Robert Creeley, Bills fan

2005-04-12T14:20:00.000-04:00

Wide Right notes the passing of poet Robert Creeley, a longtime UB presence. Since this is a sports blog and not an airy-fairy-poetical-musings blog, we felt we needed a gridiron "hook" to justify a mention.

We found one—in an interview RC gave to Bruce Comens back in 1993:

BC: Yes, [David Rattray's] disappeared. Which the culture does too, with media stars--if someone doesn't sell a record or doesn't do a film for two years they're presumed dead.

RC: He's dead, yeah. I was thinking of Jim Kelly now, the great Buffalo Bills quarterback, with his, not displacement, but his having been happily, successfully replaced by Frank Lloyd Reich.

BC: Is that what they call him?

RC: One of the news people: he's the great architect Frank Lloyd Reich, with the Reich stuff, as they say. So he's become locally, but even nationally, this pop hero. This peculiar religious feeling that endures.

BC: Well, in Canada they've made a lot of him being Canadian

RC: He seems a basically curious person. He lives out in Orchard Park. I mean, to be able to sit on the bench so patiently, for whatever part, and to be able to get up and do something, with such heroic competencies would be great.

BC: Yes, and not mind being benched again.

RC: Oh no no no--God's will, God's work. There was a great moment a couple of years ago when Jim Kelly had hurt his elbow and Frank Reich came in and won the game against Miami the next week. He was asked afterwards immediately by the press, what'd you do? He said, well, he'd prayed to Jesus Christ, who'd really come through and all had been well! And I remember they questioned some of his linemen, and they said, well, you know, it may have been Christ, but we were certainly making it all possible. He could've been out there all day long thinking about his next move and no one would've got to him. We were obviously doing a lot there, too!

BC: Do you think that sense of time is different between prose and poetry?

(Read the full interview here.)

Postscript: In an interview with the Chicago Review, Creeley mentions as his favorite sports team, "Red Sox and/or the Buffalo Bills."

Wide right! No goal!

2005-03-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

Our interns, Mangus and Rita, found this article online—a heartbreaking Queen City jam in the Village Voice

Mailing Address

2005-02-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

Please direct all inquiries here.

House Band

2005-02-11T18:59:00.000-05:00

We've been practicing our scales just for this.

Nothing doing

2005-02-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

We Googled ourselves and found this.

Cum On Feel The Noise

2005-01-10T13:56:00.000-05:00

The Smiths? M.I.A.? Lightning Bolt?

Perhaps we can establish a more nuanced Bills mix?

Heart of darkness

2005-01-07T10:34:00.000-05:00

“It was the day before the team left for Philadelphia, and then Boston, and then Buffalo, and on into the schizy, dark heart of America.” — Cleo Birdwell, AMAZONS: An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League (1980)

Introit.

2005-01-06T23:28:00.000-05:00

Games are stories. In team sports, every match is a chapter, every season an epic novel (or mock epic, depending on the team). Mostly we spectators remember actions, our memories enhanced by televised playback: an heroic pass, a crucial tackle, an exceptionally gruesome bench-clearing brawl. At times, color commentary of particular vigor (“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”) will sear itself into the collective consciousness. But generally speaking, words are secondary if they even matter all.

How curious, then, that the city of Buffalo, New York, is home to two longstanding sports franchises—the footballing Bills and the hockeying Sabres—whose histories of near-glory and stake-in-the-heart disillusionment can be encapsulated in two words apiece? To wit—

WIDE RIGHT: The Bills’ first and best chance at winning the Super Bowl, in 1991 against the New York Giants, came down to the wire. The Bills trailed by one point, 19-20. Buffalo’s Scott Norwood needed to kick the pigskin with sufficient force to fall between the uprights, 47 yards away. The ball went the distance—but passed “wide right” of the field goal. (In Queen City native Vincent Gallo’s film BUFFALO 66, VG’s character’s mother, played by Anjelica Huston, is doomed to watch the nightmare perpetually, albeit a reenacted version, as it plays over and over on an ever-glowing television.) Under Coach Marv Levy, the Bills would return to the Super Bowl three more times. In a row. And lose each time.

NO GOAL: During the Sabres’ second entry into the NHL finals, in 1999 against the Dallas Stars (the first was in 1975 versus the Philadelphia Flyers), the team lost 2-1 in game 6, during sudden-death triple overtime. When the Stars scored their game- (and series-, and Stanley Cup¬–) winning goal, Bret Hull’s skate was in the Sabres’ goal crease—an illegality, but one that the NHL explained away with a complicated definition of “possession.”

Whereas the Bills’ loss to the Giants was heartbreak, pure and simple, for the Sabres and their fans, the loss reeked of sweaty-palmed scrambling on the officials’ part (how to keep a clear head and review the tape impartially, when the cheers had already begun, the confetti was covering the ice, the champagne corks had all popped?). Some would eventually hone their conspiracy theories—a Texan would steal another contest the following year, after all.

Was it all a dream . . . ?

By some lights, game 6 never ended. “No goal” became a rallying cry among the faithful.

There is no hockey this year, but there may be hockey next year, and the year after. Game 6 will remain in suspended animation until the powers that be decide to make the right choice. We will find ourselves once again in triple overtime, with an entirely new cast of players—perhaps the 18th lineal descendants on each side—and we will see what happens then.